The Cardinal Sins of Halo FanFiction
by R.Adm.Johansen
Summary: Here are some angry nitpicks from an annoying teenager on what you should not do when writing Halo Fanfiction.


p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s1" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Bold'; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17pt;"This is a little basic guide on some nitpicks with Halo fanfics. Some "turn-offs" if you will. This will be updated over time with new chapters as I find more annoying things in stories. Enjoy. Or don't, whatever, I'm not your mom./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s3" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Bold'; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17pt; text-decoration: underline;"Spartans/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Not every story needs to be Spartan-centric. Like, most stories shouldn't be Spartan-centric. You /spanspan class="s4" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Italic'; font-style: italic; font-size: 17pt;"can/spanspan class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"write very interesting stories that do not have their main focus on our favourite superhuman boys and girls. There is much to be written regarding the Navy. And the Marines. And the ODSTs (especially ODSTs). And the Army. And the Army Rangers. And the CDF. Seriously, more than 75% of fics out there are focused on Spartans. Just why?/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s3" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Bold'; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17pt; text-decoration: underline;"Don't be sexist or misogynistic/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Alright, I'm ready to get the "Libtard" and "Soyboy" comments, but I don't care, so ya might as well just keep it in your pants./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"So, get this. I was reading this fic (which shall remain unnamed), and it got to this part where our boy John is shaving his head, and the Arbiter is watching curiously. The Arbiter questions John as to why he'd shave his head, and he replies with something along the lines of "To show dedication to the UNSC". The Arbiter then asks something along the lines of "Hey, if shaving your head means dedication, then does that mean that Captain Miranda Keyes is less dedicated than the men?" To which John makes an idiotic (he's not to blame, it's really the author's fault, obviously) response along the lines of "Women are expected to look prettier and they also fight less than men".../span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"I was like..."huh? I wasn't expecting to see the average Republican narrative in a Halo fic where John and the Arbiter hook up..."/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"OK. SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT:/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"a. Gender roles and expectations from the 1950's, which are dying off /spanspan class="s4" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Italic'; font-style: italic; font-size: 17pt;"right now/spanspan class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"are still somehow common norms in the motherfucking 26th century? I'm not inclined to believe that./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"b. People would actually give a shit about gender roles and expectations while humanity is fighting off a genocidal alliance of aliens? /span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Female who wants to enlist: I'd like to join the armed forces so we can fight off those genocidal aliens that literally threaten the existence of all of human kind, regardless of gender, sex, race, religion or beliefs./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Male recruiter: Nah fam, you a girl, go put on makeup and cower behind the men/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Yeah, right./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"c. MasterChief Petty-Officer John 117 would actually believe that bullshit, despite the fact that:/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;".A huge part of his fellow Spartans are female/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;".He has two female teammates in Blue Team/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;".He constantly works with female Marines, Army soldiers and ODSTs in the field/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Again, yeah, right./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Ok, look. Here's what to actually do. The larger reason as to why there are less women than men in the armed forces of today is that society tends to have expectations that women won't fight. As I established previously, it is safe to assume that these expectations and roles would be dead by the time Halo takes place. Therefore, the most logical assumption is that the number of women in the armed forces of the UNSC would be around the same as men. Or in other words, 50/50 or something close to that number. So go with that. And don't call me a "soyboy" in the comments, dicks./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s3" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Bold'; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17pt; text-decoration: underline;"Don't make a Mary or Gary Sue/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"This is one is pretty obvious. Make a character have flaws, it makes them more interesting. It makes them less one-dimensional. Even our badass protagonist, John-117 has flaws in the Halo series. Yeah, he seems like a perfect killing machine from the outside, but he has feelings and attachments, just like any other human being. He's got a heavy attachment to Cortana, which pretty much emotionally cripples him after he loses her. And he also admits to being deathly afraid of the Flood./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"So yeah, don't be afraid of making flawed characters. Every badass has flaws, in fact, they wouldn't be as badass if they didn't have them./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s3" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Bold'; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17pt; text-decoration: underline;"PLEASE READ THE LORE BEFORE YOU WRITE SHIT/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"OK, so, read this other fanfic, right? Where two of the characters blow up a Warthog, by using the Jerry cans of "gasoline" strapped to the back of it.../span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"THEY RUN ON HYDROGEN, YOU THINK WE'RE STILL GONNA BE USING FOSSIL FUELS 500 YEARS FROM NOW!? WELL, YOU'RE WRONG! /span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Just...read how stuff actually works. Make an educated guess if you can't, but like...yeah, you get it./span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s3" style="font-family: '.SFUIText-Bold'; font-weight: bold; font-size: 17pt; text-decoration: underline;"Please get you're grammar right/span/p  
p class="p2" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" /p  
p class="p1" style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-family: '.SF UI Text'; color: #454545; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"span class="s2" style="font-family: '.SFUIText'; font-size: 17pt;"Your all stupid /span/p 


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